Twitter as a marketing & CRM tool

Twitter: your CRM & marketing channel

Its about more than just followers…

Over the past 12 months in my twitter contributions I have often included tips to help those involved in using twitter for their business (marketing). I often get requests to publish a full set – so here is a list of my current thinking about using twitter as a tool for building relationships for future business. In no particular order (other than alphabetical)…

Add value – share interesting or useful info, blogs etc

Add good description & link for something that would be too short in a post

ALWAYS keep it clean & professional

ALWAYS professional NEVER personal unless it is praise or thanks

As far as getting followers goes; I find just being friendly and helpful does wonders. And of course shared interests help to.

Be honest. Have fun. Don’t try to sell anything.

Big followers – does not mean many listeners – the RTs tell that story

Change your BIO regularly

Change your twitter habits – make sure you don’t include links in most of your tweets, some tools treat this as spam & unfollow

contribute positively to conversations going on inside twitter

Don’t follow more people than you can handle. If you’ve got too much going on, you miss a lot of the good stuff.

Don’t expect Twitter to deliver revenue alone, it is only ONE element of the strategy

Efficient is the key to Twitter. short & sweet. Basically, get right to the point.

Even an attentive follower won’t read all your messages

Follow people who are in your field or area of interest

Follow the advice of people that have demonstrated competence – not think they know how to…

Frequent Twitter updates demand desktop or server side clients

funny, informative and catchy: choose two.

Getting followers is not a right its a privilege

Give – don’t take

Have an avatar (picture) of your face or company logo

Help promote the dreams of other people, and they may return the favour

If someone RT re-Tweets a message – send them a thank you

If you are going to auto DM only send a welcome message

If you post info of any kind, leave plenty of room for retweeting

In marketing messages use appropriate keywords

Interact and communicate with others, it’s a social media tool, so be social

Its not the number of followers but the number of Re-Tweets you get

Join the conversation, there are too many blog promoters on twitter who just broadcast. Learn @ and start networking

Keep it short

Keep your Twitter updated and the followers will come. Stay up-to-date and you will reap the benefits.

Share links. share insights and trends, things that are new or timely/current. Be personal. Don’t link only to yourself

Share thoughts and links from others (RT)

Share thoughts more than actions: Identi.ca will kill Twitter vs. I’m going to the toilet

Stop thinking that twitter is pointless and just try it. It’s all about community reach out and be a part of it

Thank people who re-tweet you. Either DM, @ reply, or re-tweet something of theirs

Think before you hit send. 140 characters have the power to help, heal or be miss-understood

This often goes unsaid, but I would suggest not having twitter open while writing. It can become very distracting

This was my problem at first, I just lurked. Get active and follow others. Great tool for tossing around ideas.

Treat followers with respect & courtesy & every now & then thank them

Tweet real stuff – highs and lows

Tweet regularly – at least 4 times a day

Tweet to show you are human

Tweet to show you are more than a marketing machine

Tweet what you read on others blogs

Twitter about stuff that has to do with your blog, but also Twitter stuff that has nothing to do with your blog

Twitter is not an IM service-keep private discussions short

Use a # in front of #keywords

Use an username as short as possible so you can twit more

Use favourites to save and show brand/product testimonials

Use travel time to tweet & read tweets on smartphones

Use twitpic or other photo services occasionally

Use Twitter to meet up with your new contacts

Use twitterfeed. Instant feedback from readers is the best part of Twitter. Listen to others; engage them; have a conversation

Want more followers? Re-tweet the good stuff you find

When you have over 100 friends use tweetdeck or Seesmic to help you to manage

Work on building a relationship-not pushing message to people

Write each word like it matters, because it does

You don’t have to follow everyone, only those of interest

Remember Twitter is not a silver bullet – or the universal hammer, it is but one tool in our communication toolbox. Done well and Twitter can be a key part of your communication strategy – do it wrong and it can undermine all of your marketing and brand development activity.

Twitter is not just for marketing – it is for learning, so make sure that you learn from others and they can learn from you. For twitter to work as a training, learning or CRM tool, people need to trust you and what you put out. As a big brand it can me all about me-me-me, however as a small business, we must be part of a community, we must respect others share the ideas of others and re-tweet their messages and blogs. Its about collaboration and win/ win. Those that only tweet their own messages will soon lose readership.

Readership is not just about followers – its the people that read and act on your messages.

From my experience I have people I am not connected to RT my messages and blog entries, so they must read the streams or use the search rather than just follow. Indeed once someone has over 200 followers, especially if they are active contributers to the twitter stream, it will be impossible to look at what they put out – so we must make it interesting and engaging that they keep looking at our material.

What are you favourite tips – share them below

Management and Leadership development are importent to you and of course to the team here at RapidBI. We hope you find this information valuable, if you do please tweet or facebook like this page. Thanks

Mike Morrison is a consultant and change agent specialising in developing skills in senior people to increase organizational performance.
Mike is also founder & director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy.